Portrait Pictures 7 Tips – Learn The Best Techniques

Portrait Pictures 7 Tips

It is no secret that portrait photography is a big money maker in this industry, but it’s going to take more than just a nice camera to get our clients looking good in front of the camera! These posing tips are to enhance the ideas we already have…

7: 2/3rds Turn

Ever wonder why people gain 10 pounds in the camera? It’s because we cut out their entire environment around them; forcing our client to take up more room in the frame. Instead of having our client face square to the camera, we need them to do a 2/3 turn away from the camera. Having them turn away will give them a slimmer profile look in the camera and shave off those 10 extra pounds.

6: Texture Lighting

When working with our clients and the lighting, we will want to position them so that the light goes across them instead of at them. This is extremely important to remember when photographing a wedding because our brides will have this beautiful dress on with most likely a really nice floral pattern. If the light does not go across her dress, then we will not see the “textures” as well as we would like. I think we can all agree that even the bride would like to remember the details of what her dress looked like. But this concept can apply to many things – if you want textures to show up, the light needs to go across the subject, not at the subject.

5: No Hands

While this might seem more like an “Old Photographers” tip, I promise you that once you realize your hand is nearly the size of your face… you will want to hide it too! The face should be the most important part of the photo and when it starts competing for attention because we can see the back or palm of the hand, then we got to switch things up. Get creative with where the hands go – keep the fingers close together – and a way we go!

4: Chin Down

Many people will have the natural instinct to lean backwards in a photo. I do not know why, but it happens and when it does we can see up their nose, into their mouth, and their eyes are partially closed. Honestly, no body wants to see that. By telling our client to bring their chin down not only helps us avoid what is going on in their nose and mouth, but we open their eyes up. The eyes are the most important and this can be a great tip in getting them to open up a bit more.

3: Diagonal Lines

Our world is made up of vertical and horizontal lines and it does not help when our client is nervous in front of the camera and goes into performance mode by keeping their hands and arms straight down their side. We need to break that up by introducing some diagonal lines into the photo and we can easily do that by having our client put their hand on their hip or in their pocket. I have found this to not only add a bit of “attitude” to the photo, but it also makes the client feel a bit more comfortable because I am sure they have stood that way before.

Using diagonal lines is a great way to improve your wedding photography. Wedding photos are often dull and the subjects look to stiff in front of the camera.

2: Shift Weight

When positioning our clients we should always try and get them to put their weight on their back foot (this doesn’t work as well with plus sizes). We can tell that their weight is on their back foot because they can still lift up their front foot and maintain balance. Shifting the weight will align the hip and shoulder track giving a more comfortable pose for our client to stand in and they will be naturally turned 2/3rd from the camera. This tip is closely related to tip 7, but if we can effectively apply this to our poses, many of the others will just fall into place. Naturally.

1: Model Communication

None of what we have mentioned here will do us any good unless we are able to communicate it. Establishing clear and open communication of what we want the client to do will make for a much better shoot. Our entire goal is to position our clients so they look good in front of the camera and these tips will only enhance the posing ideas that we come up with.

Author: Dustin Olsen is a professional photographer living in Idaho, USA. He specializes in landscape and night photography, but spends a ton of time doing portrait photography as well.

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